Last week, my daughters were writing letters to Santa. First, they drew beautiful Christmas trees, snowy landscapes, sleds, and reindeer. This got them to thinking about what they would like for Christmas this year. My older daughter had something very definite in mind: a toy and a ski suit. My younger daughter, as she often does, looked around the kitchen and sought inspiration: “I think I would like some carrots, cookies, and something to play with.”

When they finished their letters, they looked at me and said, “And what about you, Mom? What do you want for Christmas?”

I paused to think about it, trying to decide whether to share with them my real wish for Christmas. I wasn’t sure if my girls would understand it, but I decided to take a chance — I ended up telling them that what I really wanted for Christmas is health — health for my mother.

Earlier this year, we discovered that my mom had cancer. It’s been a very tough year starting with surgery and followed by chemotherapy. She is now taking a break until the end of the year when she will begin radiation therapy. My daughters know well what my mother was going through, as I had decided early on that I would tell them the truth. I didn’t want to cover it up and say that Grandma was simply “tired.” They know that Grandma is sick, but that she’s doing everything in her power to get well soon.

I explained to them that, in these moments, we realize that health is what truly matters most in life. We can find an answer for almost everything else that we are going through, but often our health problems are out of our control.

My older daughter hugged me and said that she also wants to add health to her list, but that she would write health for the whole family.

And isn’t that such a perfect answer? Health, family, and being together with the people we love — that is what Christmas is really about.

What about you? Have you started thinking about your wishes this holiday season?

We want to know what your wishes are for your family and for yourself this year.

Write on a chalkboard (or sheet of paper) your wish for your family this Christmas, be it health, peace, good will, spending more time with family, or even finding your great-grandfather’s birth certificate. Send us a photo of yourself holding up your wish to stories@myheritage.com, by December 16. Three lucky people will win an Amazon Kindle plus a private session with a professional family history researcher to help you break those brick walls and advance your family history research in the new year!

We’ll make a collage of all the finalists, and our users will be able to vote on which photo should win.

Good luck!

]]>https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/holiday-contest-enter-now-to-win/feed/0https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/holiday-contest-enter-now-to-win/Meet the Team: An Interview with Gershon from Designhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MyheritageBlog/~3/s_h8UXe9cjg/
https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/meet-the-team-an-interview-with-gershon-from-design/#respondTue, 06 Dec 2016 12:50:22 +0000http://blog.myheritage.com/?p=50713In continuation of our blog post series introducing you to the people behind MyHeritage, we interviewed Gershon from the design team:

Tell us something about yourself.

Hi. I’m Gershon Flaisher, 36, a happy father and a good friend. I’m a senior designer and art director at MyHeritage. I graduated from the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design (in Graphic Design) in 2007 in Jerusalem. My passion is design, specifically typography and interactive design. I’m a typographer and avid font lover. In my free time, I enjoy drawing, collecting maps and playing the saxophone.

How long have you been working at MyHeritage?

I’ve been working at MyHeritage since February 2013. Previously, I worked at a branding agency where I designed visuals for many different companies. It all started when I bumped into an old classmate on the street. We had studied design together at university. He told me that he was working at a company called MyHeritage and that they were working on some exciting projects. It sounded interesting, and he told me to come and meet a few people on the design team. One rainy day, I came into the MyHeritage office and, from the moment, I walked through the doors, I was impressed. I felt good vibes, and the office itself was designed to be comfortable and homey. It gave me the feeling that this is a place where I’ll be treated as a family member, something that I was hoping to find in a workplace. People said hello as I walked through the halls. Each interview was with interesting people who were all so nice and warm.

What stands out at MyHeritage over other workplaces?

Every day at MyHeritage is a good day. You interact with coworkers that aren’t just colleagues. Everyone opens up, and you know what’s happening in their lives, how their children are, etc. All conversations start with “How are you?” or “How was your weekend?”

You used to work at a branding agency, how does your work differ today?

I thought that it would be a challenge coming from a branding agency where I designed campaigns for many large companies such as Nike, Mercedes Benz, Strauss Group, and others. There we would work on short-term projects that would then be printed or go online. When the project was done, we’d move on to a new one, working on another brand entirely. At MyHeritage, we always work on one brand, one company, and with the same co-workers. You build long-term relationships with your colleagues, and you all work together towards the same goals. As a graphic designer, this also presents more of a challenge. We’re always looking for ways to reinvent the MyHeritage brand, to improve the interface and make it more user-friendly for our users. As a company, we’re always moving forward and looking to offer more than we have in the past. It’s amazing to see the design evolve over time and to improve the look and feel of our products. It’s especially gratifying when I’m at conferences, and I can answer questions from users and to receive feedback on the design.

There is a sense of thinking out of the box. We have a brand with a logo and colors, but each time that we have a new feature or product, we get to explore new ways to present it. A great example is an image that I worked on for our revolutionary technology Book Matching, that automatically researches individuals in our family trees in our vast collection of digitized historical books. I think that our users enjoy seeing our designs because they’re always fresh and exciting. Each new feature that we come out with isn’t just another day at work for us; it’s exciting for us as well. We get to think of ways to show that in our design.

What have you learned about your own family history?

Since joining MyHeritage, I’ve been able to grow my family tree six generations back, and fill in many holes. I found ancestors that I didn’t know existed and received photos of them. I was contacted through SmartMatches by a relative who knew my grandfather. My grandfather moved to Israel in 1906 from Austro-Hungary and settled in the 1930s on a small farm. He passed away six years before I was born, so I never met him. The cousin remembered my grandfather from his multiple visits back to Romania to visit the family. He was able to tell me about him, and it was incredible to hear stories about my grandfather when he was young.

Gershon’s grandfather (and namesake), Gershon Fleischer

What have you worked on that you’re most proud of?

If I had to choose one thing that I’ve worked on that I’m really proud of, it would be the registration process for new users. We understood that asking new users to add basic information about their parents and grandparents when they sign up can greatly increase their chances of receiving matches with existing MyHeritage users, allowing them to discover ancestors, relatives and never-seen-before photos in just a few seconds. We didn’t want to overload new users with many forms and screens. It was a design challenge for us to make it easy-to-use and user-friendly. It’s all about how you place things on a web page, and how you let the users experience the process. It was a success. We were able to achieve what we set out to do and helped users make discoveries easily.

I also love working on internal projects. When we recently expanded our offices, I helped our founder and CEO Gilad Japhet choose prints to be hung on the walls. When there are employee fun days, I enjoy branding the events and creating flyers. I like being able to contribute to the warm atmosphere that we have in the office and that I have appreciated from the first time I walked through the doors.

Tell us about an experience with MyHeritage that impacted you personally.

This past April I joined the MyHeritage team at the WDYTYA Live conference in Birmingham, England. It was such a unique experience for me, to be able to interact with our users, something that I don’t often get the chance to do. I enjoyed meeting users on an individual level and guiding them on their family history journey. I was able to see how individual users use our products and experience our designs. One woman sat down at our booth and started telling me about her Irish roots and how difficult it has been for her to find details about her grandmother. I was able to give her some leads into collections on our site that could help. When you design a web page, you receive statistics of how users use a certain page. To see the genuine reactions of users, who are using pages that we designed, really gave me some perspective. When I see that they appreciate how user-friendly our site is, it makes me happy to know that I was involved in its development.

]]>https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/meet-the-team-an-interview-with-gershon-from-design/feed/0https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/meet-the-team-an-interview-with-gershon-from-design/“All I ever wanted was to meet my biological family”http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MyheritageBlog/~3/rWJnIRlHh2Q/
https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/all-i-wanted-was-to-meet-my-biological-family/#respondMon, 05 Dec 2016 07:50:38 +0000http://blog.myheritage.com/?p=80536It was only when Joanne Perkins was sitting on the train to Toledo, Ohio on her way to meet her biological family for the very first time that she grasped the significance of this journey. The train was taking her to the family she hadn’t seen since she was eight years old.

Everything started back in June 2016, when Joanne was sitting in her Trenton, New Jersey living room and watching TV. A commercial for MyHeritage came on, inviting people to research their family history and find their relatives. After so many lonely years, Joanne decided she had nothing to lose. She decided to take one last chance and look for her family on MyHeritage.

Joanne signed up to MyHeritage with a free account and wrote a request in the MyHeritage Community section, looking for help locating her family:

Joanne didn’t expect a response to arrive a mere few hours later. She was surprised to see that the response was from the founder and CEO of MyHeritage, Gilad Japhet, who was reviewing the MyHeritage Community that day, helping people personally while practicing his hobby as a genealogist. She was shocked to read his message. He was writing to let her know that he has found her relatives:

“I found lots of family members for you. And lots of details about your parents, grandparents, uncles and aunts, and more. For example, here is the gravestone of your brother who died close to birth:

Gravestone of Joanne’s brother, Robert Morton Perkins.

But this wasn’t all. Japhet shared with Joanne a large collection of documents he found about her family, including an article from a local newspaper about the passing of her brother, and her parents’ marriage certificate. Finally, there was a photograph of two women:

Judith and Barbara – Joanne’s first cousins.

“I have found living family members for you on Facebook. You have what seems to be a lovely family, including the following two first cousins of yours.”

Joanne was overwhelmed with emotion. Japhet asked Joanna to tell him a bit about herself so he could look for more details about her family. Amazed by the idea of a “genealogy angel” volunteering to help her in such a meaningful way, she decided to open up and tell her story and share it with the users of MyHeritage.

“I lived with my mother until I was eight,” she said. “My father served in the Army and was sent to Germany. My mother had a mental health episode and was hospitalized, so my aunt and uncle sent my siblings and me to live in an orphanage. A short while later, my mother ended her life. My father ended up marrying someone else. I very badly want to meet my biological family. You have fulfilled a dream I’ve had for such a long time. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

Based on the information Joanne provided, Japhet continued to research her family and sent her even more details about the family, including photos of her relatives and their up-to-date phone numbers. Suddenly, all that stood between Joanne and her family members was a phone call. She decided to pick up the phone.

Joanne tells about her first phone conversation with her cousin, Tammy:

After many hours spent on the phone, the family decided to re-unite, and Joanne’s relatives invited her to come for a visit in Ohio. Having until recently thought that she was all alone in the world, Joanne accepted the invitation, hanging up with tears in her eyes. Scenes from the past, which she thought she had forgotten, flooded her memory once again.

“I suddenly remembered the last time I saw them, when I was eight, right after Mom died. I remembered the day the family all got together to try to figure out what to do with us three kids — me and my brothers.”

Several days before she got on the train to Toledo, Ohio, a messenger knocked on Joanne’s door and handed her a rolled-up package. When she opened it, she was happy to find another surprise from MyHeritage’s CEO: a giant printed family tree, featuring no less than 50 of her biological relatives.

“No one has ever done something like this for me,” Joanne said. “I never imagined that one day people who don’t even know me would come and, out of a desire to help, fulfill a dream for me. The trip to Ohio was a dream come true.”

In accordance with the family’s wishes, the emotional reunion in Ohio took place away from the cameras. After so many years and difficult memories, they asked that this moment be private.

Joanne summarized the meeting: “I have closed a circle. When I showed them the family tree I received from MyHeritage, suddenly everyone found themselves on it and understood the connection between us. I didn’t think I’d ever get to this moment, but today I’m no longer alone. I have a large family that loves me and who never forgot me.”

As family historians, we must be prepared for many languages that impact our research.

When we must deal with foreign languages, unfamiliar alphabets or archaic handwriting, we need to know where to find help. As we learn to read these alphabets and handwriting, we can understand how and where mistakes were made in our names.

Reading through transcribed online passenger manifests and census images for the names we know can be enlightening. I skipped over someone named Menchel Tallelsy until I looked at the actual manifest image – It was our cousin Mendel Talalay. The D was scrawled and the transcriber thought it was a separate C and H, instead of the correct D. I recognized TALLELSY immediately as TALALAY, but then I’ve been looking at even stranger forms of this name for a long time.

The more you look at old handwriting, the better you’ll be able to read it. There are also some excellent online resources for this task, listed at the end of this article.

If you can, start with records or documents in a language you already know to become familiar with the challenges.

TIPS

No matter how good you think your eyes are, use a magnifying glass. I never understood why people in the library always had them. After some major eye strain, I went out and bought one.

A journalist’s motto – and a genealogist’s – is always “Do Not Assume.” Read carefully and slowly to decipher the words. Ask others to read a listing and see if they can decipher it. Several pairs of eyes are always better than one.

Check your document for confusing letters and see if other words on the same page might have them. If the letter form is in a word you can read, use it to decode the others. If days and months are indicated, they can be useful in decoding letter combinations to unravel the other puzzles.

If possible, scan the document and use a photo-editing program to enlarge specific words and then crop individual letters to print out. You’ll have a handy-dandy poster to hang on your wall. Sometimes reversing the colors also helps, so try using white letters on a black background.

I’ve participated in transcription projects of cemeteries totaling 85,000 burials in two major cemeteries. The records were in Hebrew and needed to be transliterated into English for an online worldwide cemetery registry. The golden rule is always to transcribe whatever is there, exactly as-is, complete with errors, but since Hebrew is a phonetic language and usually written without vowels, the names are open to interpretation.

When the names were recorded, the often Eastern European clerks were faced with names to record and spell in Amharic (Ethiopian), Farsi (Persian), Greek or Spanish. In our transliterations, we needed to try to discover the ethnic origins of unusual names, the pronunciation and a more correct English spelling.

In general, transcribers in large projects need to be familiar with common names and places with competency in historic handwriting (paleography). Those who are familiar with certain ethnic common names and handwriting may see the letters clearly and unambiguously. Others, with no frame of reference, have a more difficult time. However, the errors may eventually help and provide more information. Keep your original documents saved, so you can always refer to the original – and the problem – when analyzing your findings.

For good practice, read through a wide variety of passenger manifests. Some are beautiful examples of calligraphy; others are scribbled with leaky pens, complete with ink blotches. With many names on each manifest, review them and train your eyes. If you come across a familiar name or place, use those clues to decipher other names.

Check online and at specialty websites for handwriting aids and transcription manuals for different languages. Local family history centers have finding aids, alphabet charts, abbreviation lists and more. Collect those pertinent to the countries and languages you are searching. Join Facebook groups specializing in ethnic research or translation, and another great source is the MyHeritage Community Forum with many global members. You might find experts who can easily read the words with which you are having trouble.

A CONFUSION OF LETTERS

Confusing letters are not only found in the middle of words. The initial letter may also be hard to read and lead to running up the wrong research road or coming to a brick wall. Over the years, and when dealing with the Ellis Island database, I discovered these letter groups are often confused when trying to read old documents or handwriting:

Vowels are also a problem. I, IE. EY, J and Y can be substituted for each other. AI-AY-AJ all sound the same. A name that begins with an A can begin with an O or a U, so check each spelling.

I’ve listed some examples of language aids online. There are many more. Try to look at some that focus on your family origins. I’m interested in hearing your comments and what you’ve found. If the database you are searching has the option for “contains,” try using the name written without the first letter.

Old German Handwritten Scripts
Although the site is in German, it isn’t that hard to navigate. There are documents, alphabet fonts and other helps to read old German handwriting.

]]>https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/names-i-cant-read-that/feed/0https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/names-i-cant-read-that/Now Online: United States WWI Draft Registrations, 1917-1918http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MyheritageBlog/~3/zvG8hENk7E8/
https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/now-online-united-states-wwi-draft-registrations-1917-1918/#commentsThu, 01 Dec 2016 10:03:05 +0000http://blog.myheritage.com/?p=80466We’ve just added to SuperSearch™ a great collection of United States World War I Draft Registrations, 1917-1918, with over 24 million records. Information recorded varied slightly by registration date but usually included name, current residence address, date of birth, place of birth, age, marital status, race, occupation, employer, citizenship status, and other information about his next of kin. The cards were double-sided with information entered on both sides. The details were usually written in by an official, but the signature or mark was handwritten by the person registering.

On April 6, 1917, the United States officially entered World War 1 and declared war on Germany. The size of the US Army then was too small to effectively fight an overseas war, and an Act was passed enabling men to be selected, trained and drafted into military service, as necessary.
The first step was to register all eligible men.

The “first registration” on June 5, 1917, included all men from 21 to 31 years of age. The “second registration” date was June 5, 1918, with a supplemental registration on August 24, 1918, covering those who had recently turned 21. The final registration was on September 12, 1918, for all men ages 18-45, who had not previously registered.

By the end of the war, some 2 million men had volunteered for military service and an additional 2.8 million men had been drafted. A draft registration card does not necessarily imply that the individual was drafted or that he didn’t volunteer separately.

We’ve collected a few interesting examples from this collection:

Charlie ChaplinCharlie Chaplin, the movie actor, was registered in the First Registration.

His registration card reveals his full name as Charles Spencer Chaplin, born April 16, 1889, in London. At the registration, he was 28 and living in Los Angeles, California. He is listed as an Alien who had not yet declared his intent to become a citizen.

His occupation is given as a Motion Picture Comedian. He signed the card as “Charles Spencer Chaplin.”

On the back of this card, he is described as of medium height and slender build, with blue eyes and black hair.

His Draft Registration card was completed on June 5, 1917.

From other records, we know that Charlie first went on tour from England to the United States in 1910 and, in 1917, he became an independent producer in Hollywood. In 1918, he turned his attention to a national tour on behalf of the US war effort.

Al CaponeAl Capone, the infamous gangster, was registered in the final registration.

The name on his card was Alphonse Capone. He was living at 38 Garfield Place, Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. He was 19, and his date of birth was January 17, 1899. The card shows that he was native-born (i.e., born in the US). His occupation was a Paper Cutter, and he worked for the United Paper Box Company in Brooklyn. His nearest relative was his mother, Theresa Capone, living at the same address.

The back of the card describes his height as 5′ 7″ with a medium build, gray eyes and dark brown hair.

From other records, we know that Al’s parents were Italian immigrants who had nine children. Some of his siblings worked with him in his criminal empire. Al attained fame during Prohibition as a gangland boss and is credited with ordering the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre (1929) in the struggle to take control of Chicago’s organized crime. In 1931, Capone was charged and convicted of tax evasion.

He spent his sentence in various prisons, including Alcatraz, and was paroled on November 16, 1939. When released, he was not in good health and died in Florida on 25 January 25, 1947.

Here’s another example that shows how valuable records in this collection can be. This is the registration card of Thomas Soltz.

We can see that Thomas was an immigrant from Vilna (then Russia, today Lithuania), born May 11, 1889, who had subsequently naturalized as an American citizen. He was 28 and lived at 38 Mann Street, New London, Connecticut. His was a Physician and was not married.

These details allow us to search for further details about Thomas Soltz. When we enter his name into MyHeritage SuperSearch, using the advanced search option to “match name exactly” (both first name and surname), a number of results appear. These include his appearance in the US Federal Censuses of 1900, 1910, 1930 and 1940. Also listed are 12 newspaper articles about him in the Norwich Bulletin newspaper which covered the New London, Connecticut area. One article gives details of his brother, Herman Soltz, who was arrested for reckless driving. From this, it is possible to find a WWI draft registration card for Herman Soltz.

This names Herman’s mother as Lena Soltz and knowledge about the family expands.

This collection is significant to family historians as it provides key details (including name, address, date and place of birth, citizenship status, next of kin and an actual signature) for more than 24 million male Americans, who were born mainly 1875-1900 and who were alive towards the end of WWI (i.e., 1917-1918).

As we can see from the examples above, the cards in this database are a real goldmine. They not only provide information recorded on the card and handwritten signatures but can also open a gateway to further information about the individual and their family during that time.

Search the collections of United States WWI Draft Registrations, 1917-1918 today and let us know what you discover!

]]>https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/now-online-united-states-wwi-draft-registrations-1917-1918/feed/2https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/12/now-online-united-states-wwi-draft-registrations-1917-1918/MyHeritage DNA kits are on their way!http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MyheritageBlog/~3/2ri_H_hehTk/
https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/myheritage-dna-kits-are-on-their-way/#respondFri, 25 Nov 2016 16:53:54 +0000http://blog.myheritage.com/?p=80379The successful launch of MyHeritage DNA, our affordable, simple to use, at-home DNA tests to uncover ethnic origins and discover new relatives, met with a huge demand. We have been working around the clock to get the kits shipped to our customers as quickly as possible. Our DNA kit box assembly and shipping facility is located in a huge fulfillment center in New Jersey, USA. To streamline the process, we dispatched our business and product managers from Israel, Katarina Markova and Dana Drutman, to supervise the process and train the staff. They have taken photos of the process of shipping our kits to the first customers, and we thought we’d share them with you, to give you a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes to get the kits sent to you.
The gigantic warehouse, where it all happens

Assembly line of the MyHeritage DNA kits. The boxes are fitted with vials, cheek swabs, and printed instructions.

The kits are packed by hand to ensure quality

Each kit receives a unique activation code

Ready to go!

On their way to destinations around the world

Shipping the first batch calls for a celebratory selfie by Katarina and Dana, the MyHeritage team on the ground!

We’re shipping the kits on a first come first served basis, as soon as we can.

You can order your own DNA kit, plus additional DNA kits for your family members, on MyHeritage DNA. Take advantage of the limited-time discounted price and order your kits today to beat the crowds.

Enjoy!

]]>https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/myheritage-dna-kits-are-on-their-way/feed/0https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/myheritage-dna-kits-are-on-their-way/Thanksgiving Day: Celebrating family and family historyhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MyheritageBlog/~3/X9XOqngfxxU/
https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/thanksgiving-day-celebrating-family-and-family-history/#respondThu, 24 Nov 2016 20:31:03 +0000http://blog.myheritage.com/?p=80372As millions of Americans, at home and abroad, celebrate this day with family and friends, we family historians and genealogists are also thankful for so much.

As we sit around the table and share stories of our ancestors, we also reflect on the many technological advances that help our research.

From old-fashioned creepy-crawly research in dusty archives, so much information is now accessible by computer at any time of the day or night.

It is still hard to believe that – in just a few short years – we have seen such remarkable tools change the face of family history and how we research our family.

We are thankful for so many individuals around the globe whose ideas have blossomed and made family history research easier and quicker than ever before.

Just a few of the improvements we cannot live without today:

The advent of DNA genetic genealogy has made it possible to find family we didn’t even know we had.

The amazing proliferation of family history websites has allowed us to share our research with family around the world.

The many specialized websites allowing those with ancestors in almost every country around the world to find obscure records.

The growth in genealogy conferences around the world which bring us together to share knowledge and encourage newcomers.

Continue to share your family’s stories with the younger generations. If you are the senior in the family, it is up to you.

In my own family’s case, we have experienced a series of events that we really cannot explain. Our family left Spain before the 1492 Expulsion, we left Belarus for the US before the Russian Revolution; other relatives left Europe before the Holocaust, we left Iran before the Revolution, we left Los Angeles before the Northridge earthquake. Friends who know these stories always ask me to tell them if I plan to leave New Mexico! I experienced the last two myself and cannot explain it as anything other than a very strong feeling of anxiety urging me that it was time to go. Who knows what my ancestors had experienced to trigger this urge to flee centuries ago?

Ancestor syndrome and genetic memory are even implicated in the case of phobias, which might be based on inherited experiences of their ancestors, such as a fear of spiders and an ancestor’s frightening experience.

Faculty members at McGill University in Montreal asked a similar question concerning those who went through the January 1998 ice storm in Quebec, one of the worst natural disasters in Canadian history. People had no electricity for weeks. It was stressful. The researchers recruited 176 mothers who were pregnant at the time of the storm, or who became pregnant soon after, and assessed the degree of hardship they had experienced (days without electricity, time spent in a shelter, damage to their homes) along with their personal feelings of distress. Thirteen years later, they analyzed blood cells of 36 of the children born to those mothers and found chemical changes. They compared those results to 34 of the same children tested eight years earlier to find changes. The result is that the chemical changes were linked to the degree of prenatal hardship reported by the mothers years before. The researchers claimed the findings offered the first human evidence supporting the conclusion that prenatal maternal stress results in lasting, broad and functionally organized DNA signatures.

Historical trauma – as defined by the Indigenous Institute for Knowledge and Development, at the University Of New Mexico in Albuquerque, refers to the effect of memories, facts, tales, images, places, circumstances, reenacting traumatic historical events and triggering emotional and physical distress.

The intergenerational transmission of trauma has been mostly viewed as based on recollection of events, whose memory has been handed down from one generation to the next one, in the natural context of family and community values and habits, including storytelling, sharing experiences, traditions, and specific historical events. However, although this sharing has a large role in trauma responses in the younger generations, it does not fully explain why individuals not explicitly part of this sharing of memory, events, can show signs of historical trauma (i.e. helplessness, apathy, detachment and alienation from their communities).

Other studies have shown such indications in Native Americans, in families affected by the Holocaust, and in Black Americans. Stressors can include famine, stress, toxins, affection

The first research with Holocaust survivors was performed by professor emeritus (University of Nice, France) Anne Ancelin Schützenberger, now in her 90s. Her book, “The Ancestor Syndrome: Transgenerational Psychotherapy and the Hidden Links in the Family Tree” (Routledge, London/New York, 1998), demonstrates that we are mere links in a chain of generations, and we may have no choice in having events and traumas experienced by our ancestors visited upon us in our own lifetime.

She worked with Holocaust survivors and showed that the trauma they suffered was passed on to their children and that a person’s life experience can affect subsequent generations.

Later, Mount Sinai Hospital (New York City) carried out a genetic study of 32 Jewish men and women who been in concentration camps, experienced torture or who had hidden during WWII. The genes of their children, who were known to have increased stress disorders, were compared with Jewish families who lived outside of Europe during the war. Scientist Rachel Yehuda said, “The gene changes in the children could only be attributed to Holocaust exposure in the parents.” She says her study provides the first demonstration of transmission of pre-conception stress effects resulting in epigenetic changes in both parents and children.

Although the importance of Holocaust survival on the next generation has been studied for years, the challenge has been in proving that these intergenerational effects are not just transmitted by social influences from parents or regular genetic inheritance.

An interesting experiment with mice at Emory University (Atlanta, Georgia) paired the fragrance of cherry blossom with a small electric shock. Eventually, the mice shuddered at the smell without the shock. The mice’s offspring had the same fear of the fragrance although hey had never smelled it. Their brains had an increased number of cherry blossom smell receptors, showing that they had inherited association of the fragrance with fear. Another study used sweet almonds with the same result. Scientists agreed that such results in rats can survive for at least four generations.

At the time, it was felt that this would be impossible to scientifically prove. However, recent experiments have demonstrated that it is possible.

Doreen Carvajal, a former New York Times reporter, who has been investigating her ancestry and genealogy for years, is intrigued by the notion that generations pass on particular survival skills and an unconscious sense of identity that stands the test of centuries.

In the 1990s, Jerusalem psychotherapist Dina Wardi worked with the children of Holocaust survivors and developed the theory that survivor parents often designated certain children as “memorial candles,” who served as a link to preserve the past and connect the future. The children of survivors who actively struggled against the Nazis, Wardi found, had a compulsive ambition to achieve.

An additional twist in this field is offered by a Wisconsin psychiatrist Dr. Darold A. Treffert, who maintains a registry of some 300 “savants,” who through a head injury or other condition acquire skills they never learned. Conceivably, he says, those skills like music, mathematics, art and calendar-calculating, were buried deep in their brains. He calls it genetic memory, or “factory-installed software,” a huge reservoir of dormant knowledge that can emerge when a damaged brain rewires itself to recover from injuries. He says the only way that knowledge can be there is through genetic transmission.

Does your family feel they have a connection to the past via the experiences of your ancestors? Share your comments below.

]]>https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/our-ancestors-memories-and-us/feed/0https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/our-ancestors-memories-and-us/MyHeritage DNA: New feature added – Ancestral Surnameshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MyheritageBlog/~3/XNfGyp_RaQs/
https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/myheritage-dna-new-feature-added-ancestral-surnames/#respondWed, 16 Nov 2016 20:38:02 +0000http://blog.myheritage.com/?p=80293Today we released an important new feature in DNA Matches: the display of common ancestral surnames for every match. This was a frequent request among the many users who have uploaded DNA data to MyHeritage, and we are very happy to oblige. This feature makes DNA Matches even more useful also for the many new customers of MyHeritage DNA.

“Ancestral surnames” refers to the surnames of your ancestors such as grandparents, great grandparents, etc., and they play a vital role in family history research. On your DNA Matches page, we automatically identify which surnames you and your matches have in common to bring this to your attention. An ancestral surname that you and your match share could point to the identity of the shared ancestor from which both of you inherited the same DNA segments. Note that surnames are currently considered as matching if they are identical; we plan to support phonetic equivalence later on.

Here are some examples from DNA Matches:

Move the mouse over the common ancestral surnames to get a tooltip with additional details. You will see how many ancestors of the matching individual and tree owner’s share the common surname, and the shortest relationship path between each one of them and an ancestor with that surname.

One of the benefits of MyHeritage DNA, compared to other DNA services, is that most users on MyHeritage have elaborate family trees. That’s why for most of your DNA Matches on MyHeritage, you will be able to view a tree and try to figure out the exact relationship. This makes the Ancestral Surnames feature far more useful because it will help you separate the wheat from the chaff and highlight the matches that are more promising and easier to connect to your family.

The option to search matches by ancestral surnames will be added very soon.

Order a MyHeritage DNA kit today to get insights into your family history and ethnic origins, and with the help of ancestral surnames, connect with relatives with whom you share common ancestors. We will soon add more features to MyHeritage DNA, and implement many more of your suggestions.

]]>https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/myheritage-dna-new-feature-added-ancestral-surnames/feed/0https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/myheritage-dna-new-feature-added-ancestral-surnames/Major Mobile App Updatehttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MyheritageBlog/~3/3lkLwIn4XkU/
https://blog.myheritage.com/2016/11/major-mobile-app-update/#commentsThu, 10 Nov 2016 12:05:32 +0000http://blog.myheritage.com/?p=49584The MyHeritage Mobile App allows you to share family moments, discover and edit your family history and keep in touch with the people you love, anywhere and anytime. We’ve just released a major update to the mobile app featuring real-time discovery notifications and a List View for viewing your family tree.

We’ve added real-time Smart Matches to bring you discoveries as you enter information in your family tree on the mobile app. Every time you update the profile of an individual in your family tree, we automatically look for matches with the 34 million existing family trees on MyHeritage. You’ll then get in-app notifications.

Family Tree List View

You can now view your family tree in a List View both on the mobile app and while viewing your tree in an internet browser on your mobile phone. Complete with improved search functionality and sorting options, this feature is great for finding individuals in your tree quickly and easily, especially when you are on the go.

To get to the List View for your family, click “Tree” on the main page of the mobile app.

Click on the List View icon in the top right-hand corner of your family tree.

Search for someone from the family tree to bring up their name in the list. Start typing in a person’s name, and you will immediately receive suggestions. You can then select a specific individual.

Click on an individual in the list to open his/her full profile.

The Discoveries icon to the right of a name indicates the number of pending matches for that person. Click on it to view that person’s matches.

There are several actions you can choose for an individual by swiping left on their name (iOS) or by pressing down on their name for a few seconds (Android). Search records for the individual, add a photo for him/her or view them in the family tree.

To change the sorting of the list, click on the funnel icon in the top right-hand corner.

Choose to sort by relationship, first name or last name and click “Apply” to save your changes.

Return to the tree view at any time by clicking on the tree icon in the top right-hand corner.